March 12, 2008

Ethics Daily ran my latest article today, which is entitled "Organizers Defend Environmental Statement." It is a follow-up to my piece on Monday about "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" that was released by the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative. This piece deals with some of the struggles the organizers were having as they attempted to defend the declaration against various complaints and questions in a teleconference on Monday. Also, Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics had a column yesterday that followed up on his initial criticism of the declaration's weaknesses.

I thought you might be interested in considering some of the science and scientists not swallowing the human-caused global warming theories.

Here's a link to a recent event: http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/newyork08.cfm

One of the interesting quotes from the site:

"Are the scientists and economists who ask these questions [which the United Nations group ignored] just a fringe group, outside the scientific mainstream? Not at all. A 2003 survey of 530 climate scientists in 27 countries, conducted by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch at the GKSS Institute of Coastal Research in Germany, found

Attacking the source without attention to the actual evidence the source has set forth is an ad homimen. You must consider the fact that despite who provides funding, their evidence may very well be true.

D.R.: Thanks for the comments. Dealing with source credibility is not an ad homimen attack. That is when one attacks the person instead of the issues. However, source credibility goes to the heart of the issue. I have not attacked these individuals or called them names. I am just arguing that we need to make sure we are getting the best and most credible evidence possible. I'm not even saying that they are wrong, but that we need to listen to someone who has not been paid by a group that has a vested interest in controlling the discussion. I am not saying that all of the claims about climate change are correct as I clearly do not have the expertise to evaluate that. And that is why it upsets me when a group pumps in a lot of money to get their one-sided account accepted. As you note, there are many other sources that could be used and I hope that Christians who do not believe the claims of climate change will be careful who they trust in this debate.